What will make me slimmer? Zone 3 or zone 4 training?

[quenya]

Man, I wish I could hold 300 or so watts for 10 hours.

Wish in one hand and **** in the other and see which weighs more.

FWIW I'm doing the Climb to Kaiser, 155 miles with 14,500+ feet of climbing. I push a big gear and climb out of the saddle a lot, so yeah I'll be putting out 300+ watts for a not insignificant portion of the ride.

 

[Enriss]

Facetiousness is cool, heh, heh.

FWIW though, per my lab test I burn 18cal/minute at only 220w. Doing the math, that works out to ~1100cal/hr. These numbers don't even take into account the 'slow component' aspect...

I was actually totally serious. My first reaction was definitely, "there's no way those numbers are real. 10kCal in 10 hours? no way, that's gotta be more watts than any human being can actually put out." So then I went number crunching, found the conversion factor from kCal/hr -> watts, a rough value for efficiency of the human body, and went, "whoa, that number isn't actually superhuman. I wish I could do that..."

 

[tonyzackery]

I was actually totally serious.

LOL! For some strange reason, I had a feeling this was coming...

 

[swampy1970]

It's almost impossible to do any thing else but stay aerobic on a longer ride.

Glycogen will still be the primary fuel substrate utilised at just about all intensities.

It's about the overall energy balance over the medium-term. Mostly that's about practicing the art of fork control. Unless you are doing some serious volume riding, or long stage racing where it can be difficult to eat enough.

Well said that chap. Well said...

 

[GT Fanatic]

I'm just going to make this cut and dry, and this post is probably just plain unhelpful, but the easiest way to lose weight is to just get on your bike and ride your ass off.

I weighed 207 lbs as of last night. I've been riding for 2.5 months and I've lost 14 lbs since starting. While I knew I'd lose weight, that wasn't my main goal. My main goal was to get on a bike and just enjoy myself.

For a few years now I've had visions of grandeur of the day I'd get back on a bicycle, always reliving those "BMX moments" in my head. I told my wife, "I want to jump Devil's Pit again," which was a dirt ramp at the neighborhood park years ago; over 20 years ago, to be exact. It was a 2-3 foot high dirt ramp in front of a 6 ft long, 4ft deep pit. My wife told me I was crazy, I was no longer 14 years old, and my days of jumping bikes was over.

Well, we bit, and bought bikes; MOUNTAIN bikes. Now, I'm riding harder than I ever did as a kid, and even have my 42 year-old wife barreling down hills with me on a mountain bike. We joined a bicycle club about a week after purchasing our mountain bikes.

Now, we're going out on Thursday night rides with the club. I purchased a road bike on Monday, and Rachel will take her mountain bike until she "bites" on a road bike.

Anyway, I'm rambling here, but I guess what I'm getting at is that if you're getting into biking for fitness, your hobby will be short-lived. Do it because you love it, and the weight-loss will follow.

Admittedly, yeah, I like losing weight while riding, and it's a small goal of mine to get fit while riding, but it is not my main reason or motivation for doing it. My main motivations are to enjoy myself and re-live those old memories of being 14 years old again and jumping Devil's Pit, something I abandoned when I had gotten my license. Ironically enough, now that I have my license, I want to bike again.

 

[gregf83]

Saturday I am doing a ride that will take, hopefully, less than 12 hours but certainly more than 10. Knowing that this will burn about 10,000 calories I have to assume that the primary source of energy expended will not be roughly 2000 calories of glycogen but the many thousands of calories I consume before and during the event.

Have you done this ride before? Those numbers seem a little high (264W avg for 11 hrs??) In any case, given that most people can only absorb about 250-300 Cals/Hr, most of your 10,000 Cals will need to come from fat stores.

 

[tonyzackery]

Have you done this ride before? Those numbers seem a little high (264W avg for 11 hrs??) In any case, given that most people can only absorb about 250-300 Cals/Hr, most of your 10,000 Cals will need to come from fat stores.

I had a feeling I wasn't exclusively privy to this knowledge...

 

[garage sale GT]

^^ Fat stores do not replenish glycogen.
Harder exercise that burns more glycogen will cause a greater appetite response as the body desires (cravings) to replace those empty stores. This situation creates a scenario ripe for binge eating - which isn't very conducive to weight loss.

Stay primarily aerobic, control your eating, and you will definitely slim down. The equation is not complicated, but it takes discipline.

Your post-ride meal can either replenish glycogen, or it can make you fat.

 

[gregf83]

I had a feeling I wasn't exclusively privy to this knowledge...

I've seen other riders who've completed that ride in 9 hrs at under 200W avg so I think the Cal estimate is high unless quenya is heavy.

 

[tonyzackery]

Your post-ride meal can either replenish glycogen, or it can make you fat.

I'm a little dense sometimes - que votre point? Follow-up question - can your post-ride meal do both that you mention above, or is it only one or the other?

 

[quenya]

Have you done this ride before? Those numbers seem a little high (264W avg for 11 hrs??) In any case, given that most people can only absorb about 250-300 Cals/Hr, most of your 10,000 Cals will need to come from fat stores.

No this will be my first Climb to Kaiser, though I have ridden all but about 4 miles of it several times in training including rides that linked the biggest climbs. I don't have a watt-o-meter so I really have no idea how much power I'm generating but a calculator I use that uses heart rate and VO2max plus a bunch of other variables has put my training rides at about 1000 kCAL per hour.

So are you getting the wattage you mentioned straight from my estimated calorie burn? How universal is that conversion? It seems like an individuals metabolism, level of fitness, and percentage of fast to slow twitch muscles all would make that a highly variable rationship, energy to power in a very complex system.

 

[garage sale GT]

It seems to me like it's almost more important that you stay in the aerobic zone because of how much more energy you can burn there, rather than the balance of fat/glycogen as a fuel source. Considering the idea of caloric balance, intake - output = deficit which results in weightloss, so if you can do exercise that burns lots of calories, you'll lose more weight.

If your aerobic efforts aren't burning any more calories than you could burn in anaerobic efforts(which really just means you should go for longer/more intense but still aerobic efforts), I don't see why you shouldn't do the anaerobic efforts.

Edit: Maybe I should clarify that I understand that lower intensity efforts take a higher percentage of their energy from fat, but even if the body does burn lots of glycogen, I was under the impression that the body could replenish glycogen stores from fat stores. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm certainly not an expert.

^^ Fat stores do not replenish glycogen.
Harder exercise that burns more glycogen will cause a greater appetite response as the body desires (cravings) to replace those empty stores. This situation creates a scenario ripe for binge eating - which isn't very conducive to weight loss.

Stay primarily aerobic, control your eating, and you will definitely slim down. The equation is not complicated, but it takes discipline.

I'm a little dense sometimes - que votre point? Follow-up question - can your post-ride meal do both that you mention above, or is it only one or the other?

Why do you point out that fat stores don't replenish glycogen? How does that defeat Enriss' point? If you only mentioned it incidentally, why didn't you say "incidentally, fat stores do not replenish glycogen?" And you know as well as I do that the goddamn voters have got nothing to do with it.

If your next meal is refueling your muscles after an anaerobic effort, then that's energy which won't be stored as fat.

 

[garage sale GT]

I think the real issue may be at what point does cortisol force your body to store more fat around the midsection?

Does anybody know anything about that?

 

[tonyzackery]

Why do you point out that fat stores don't replenish glycogen? How does that defeat Enriss' point? If you only mentioned it incidentally, why didn't you say "incidentally, fat stores do not replenish glycogen?" And you know as well as I do that the goddamn voters have got nothing to do with it.

If your next meal is refueling your muscles after an anaerobic effort, then that's energy which won't be stored as fat.

?? I doubt this Enriss character needs you to fight his battles...but anyway...

LOL! Now you think you're in a position to tell me how I SHOULD respond to someone?! I suggest you go and crawl back under the rock from whence you came, little person...

Still, I'd like to know "que votre point"?

 

[swampy1970]

Thanks for that image it illustrates my point perfectly! Your body uses carbohydrates and fat, with carbs being proportional to effort. What I pointed out is that glycogen is one of the carbohydrates the other is glucose.

Saturday I am doing a ride that will take, hopefully, less than 12 hours but certainly more than 10. Knowing that this will burn about 10,000 calories I have to assume that the primary source of energy expended will not be roughly 2000 calories of glycogen but the many thousands of calories I consume before and during the event.

10,000 calories in less that 12 hours... really. A recent jaunt through the 'hills' near Lake Tahoe, the 8 pass Alta Alpina Challenge - 20,000+ft of climbing and 200miles (thanks for the impromptue course extension guys!) took my 170lb lump 8104KJ of PT reported fun... and a bit longer than 12 hours.

For me, 310 watts nets about 1,000KJ per hour - good luck with doing that for 10+ hours. My polar used to guestimate calorific expenditure at about 25% over what the PT reports via measurement.

 

[swampy1970]

I think the real issue may be at what point does cortisol force your body to store more fat around the midsection?

Does anybody know anything about that?

It's all about stress. Sleep more and stop giving a sh1t about trivial things. Take more time to smell the roses and chill.

 

[Yonni]

Harder exercise that burns more glycogen will cause a greater appetite response as the body desires (cravings) to replace those empty stores. This situation creates a scenario ripe for binge eating - which isn't very conducive to weight loss.

So well planned post ride nutrition is just as important to ensure that you don't undo all of your hard work. I used to get home and devour the first thing I saw when I opened the fridge adn then wonder why I couldn't drop weight even when training most days. Recovery drinks first for the immediate fix replenish all the important stuff as well as helping to make you feel satiated then little and often quality calories.

 

[jollyrogers]

So are you getting the wattage you mentioned straight from my estimated calorie burn? How universal is that conversion? It seems like an individuals metabolism, level of fitness, and percentage of fast to slow twitch muscles all would make that a highly variable rationship, energy to power in a very complex system.

Power and duration tell how much work someone performed. To determine EXACTLY how many calories (how much energy) it takes a person to perform that work requires a metabolic cart or metabolic room. The energy it takes to perform a given amount of work divided by the work performed equals efficiency.

On average, humans are ~24% efficient on the bike, with the vast majority being between 20% and 25%. There are outliers, but they are not common. Since the average person is 24% efficient the kJ of work shown on a PM = the amount of energy required to perform that work.

 

[doctorSpoc]

As others have indicated, it basically comes down to expending as much energy as you can for the amount of time i.e. riding at the highest ave power you can for the duration...

how much time you have to give to riding on a day will determine how intense the effort should be.. it's self correcting anyway, if you go too hard you body will force you to slow down... there is a danger of going out too hard, red lining and crawling home with a less than idea ave power.. as other have also indicated you should also think about day to day workouts.. if you kill yourself today and aren't able to ride or force to ride much reduced duration of intensity then maybe it's better that you just ride more reasonably today.. you want to do the most you can day over day and week over week as well..

forget about aerobic vs anaerobic.. for any effort more than about 1-2 mins you will be, by a wide margin using aerobic metabolism..

as others have also said.. if you are really interested in weight loss.. controlling intake is really what you should be concentrating on.. much easier to not eat a doughnut than to ride for two hours to get rid of the calories from it.. contrary to popular belief it's actually pretty crazy to think about exercise as a way to quickly lose weight.. use exercise to get you fit.. restrict calories to lose weight.. if you are doing 20-25hr of training a week then yes your training will help you lose weight.. if you're not doing that kind of volume you're really wasting your time even thinking about this.. just restrict your calories..

 

[alienator]

as others have also said.. if you are really interested in weight loss.. controlling intake is really what you should be concentrating on.. much easier to not eat a doughnut than to ride for two hours to get rid of the calories from it..

Wait, when you say "doughnut," you mean the unhealthy ones, right? You're not talking about the healthy, nutritious doughnuts, like the ones at Krispy Kreme, right?